A.M. ATL: Mall madness

Morning, y’all! What breakfast makes you feel invincible? For me, it’s easy: Sous vide egg bites from Costco in a shallow pool of salsa verde, topped with goat cheese, pickled onions and toasted sunflower seeds. C’est exquis.

Let’s get to it.

FANCY PLANS FOR NORTH POINT MALL

A rendering of a planned redevelopment of North Point Mall in Alpharetta by Jamestown and New York Life. The project is centered on a 20,000-seat arena large enough to support an NHL franchise if one were announced for the Atlanta area. (Courtesy of Jamestown)

Today, the Alpharetta City Council will decide whether to approve an ambitious, expensive redevelopment pitch for North Point Mall.

The plan is to transform the massive shopping center and surrounding area into a sports-anchored district with a 20,000-seat hockey arena and practice rink, hundreds of apartments and hotel rooms, and new office and retail spaces.

Apartments and a hockey arena, eh?

• Despite tepid responses from the NHL so far, Atlanta developers are still bullish on trying to lure a franchise to the city to fill the Thrashers-shaped hole in our hearts.
• That’s all well and good, but council members say such amenities would be useless if Atlanta didn’t actually score a new NHL team.
• Then, there’s the issue of apartments. They’ve long been a controversial development type in the affluent suburb, and Alpharetta requires 68% of the city’s housing stock to be owned rather than rented.
• North Point Mall was built in 1993 on a 100-acre site. It’s not a retail mecca like Perimeter or Cumberland Mall, but it still attracts millions of shoppers a year.
• To developers and some leaders, a major revamp of North Point could boost the area’s relevance. However, others think the current plan is moving too quickly, and with too little assurance that, when it is built, people (and hockey) will come.

🔎 READ MORE: What residents say, and why some council members are hesitant

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ADVOCATES WANT ICE OUT OF ATLANTA SCHOOLS

Some Atlanta-area community groups are advocating for rules that would make it tougher for Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to remove a student from a public school.

The groups are united under the Safe Space to Learn Coalition, which wants policies that would require a judicial warrant or court order for agents to enter private areas of a school, question a student or remove them from campus.

What’s the current policy?

• In January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded “protected areas” guidelines, which declared several locations, including schools, areas in which ICE actions should be avoided “to the fullest extent possible.”
• Federal law still prohibits ICE officials from entering private areas of a school (like classrooms or offices) without a judicial warrant. However, advocates want better assurance through local measures that these laws will be honored.

🔎 READ MORE: Coalition wants to reduce fear of ICE activity on school campuses

MUST-KNOW POLITICS AND BUSINESS

⚡ Gov. Brian Kemp picked veteran utility regulator Stan Wise to replace a member of Georgia’s Public Service Commission who is stepping down early from her post. Wise, a Republican, previously served on the commission for two decades. He won’t, however, be running for a full term in November. The PSC’s work has become increasingly visible as data center and power projects proliferate in Georgia.

💸 Independent political committees have spent more than $25 million to influence this year’s elections in Georgia. Where has the biggest proportion of this money come from? Sports-betting promoters, who have pumped $12.3 million into legislative races across the state.

🎓 The University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents just greenlit three-year bachelor’s degree programs for some fields of study. Advocates say it could be a time-effective, cost-effective alternative for some students.

SOCCER AT SANFORD STADIUM

Heck yeah. (Jason Getz/AJC)

Last Thursday, soccer returned to the University of Georgia’s Sanford Stadium for the first time since the 1996 Olympics.

• That summer, Sanford was the site of the U.S. women’s national team’s momentous gold medal victory. Fitting, then, that it was the UGA women’s team that took the pitch thirty summers later.
• Not only did UGA beat James Madison University 6-0, the game set a new NCAA soccer attendance record for women’s soccer.
• Actually, it blew the old record of 14,410 attendees out of the water, with 25,000+ in the stands to make new soccer history.

⚽ READ MORE: Coach hopes the game leaves a lasting impression

FROM THE CORNER OF PEACHTREE AND PEACHTREE

Yes, we have a lot of Peachtree Streets. And Boulevards. And Roads. We get it! Actually, take a guess at how many metro Atlanta streets have “Peachtree” somewhere in their name. I’ll wait.

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If you guessed 71, you’re right in line with a 2022 report of figures from the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Do we deserve to be made fun of for this? Probably.

Enter “71 Peachtrees (Lost in Atlanta),” a song by NYC comedians the Gregory Brothers. The ode to the one word Atlantans love more than any other has taken off on social media. It even includes a cameo from beloved Atlantan T-Pain.

🍑 READ MORE: How (and why) the song came to be

NEWS BITES

Buc-ee’s draws outcry for launching fight over Ohio mini mart’s beaver logo

The beaver is insatiable! It salts the ground of its enemies! No other beaver may prosper while the mighty Buc-ee draws breath.

‘Fat Marmot Week’ in Colorado hopes to draw awareness, donations in light of federal funding cuts

Those marmots better not be smiling or wearing a red baseball cap, or they’re gonna get sued out of existence.

Actually useful tips to make the best banana pudding

If it’s in any way passably healthy, you’re not doing it right.

Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games